Conned by a convicted bigamist and sex offender, a Florence woman fights back

Last year, recently divorced Mischele Lewis, 36, of Florence met and fell in love with an Englishman named Liam Allen. He worked for the UK Ministry of Defense and was stationed here in America. After a little less than a year of dating, he asked her to marry him and she accepted. Then she got pregnant. The wedding date was set for October 14 of this year. It was to be a true happily ever after story.

Then Lewis looked inside Allen’s wallet on Feb. 16 — “I don’t know what made me do it,” Lewis said — and found an identification card with Allen’s face and the name “William Allen Jordan” attached to it.

She didn’t think that much of it; he had told her, on previous occasions, he often used aliases in his line of work.

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Two days later, she Googled the name.

“What popped up was article after article about him and his past,” Lewis said. “He was a bigamist. He defrauded other women. He pled guilty to inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor. I found a book his second wife wrote, downloaded and read it, contacted her, and she told me everything. He was married to two women at once. He told me he was adopted; he was never adopted. He was born and raised in Cherry Hill. He wasn’t English, even though he kept up his British accent. Even after I confronted him. Even during the bust on Tuesday.”

That’s right. The bust. See, Lewis confronted Jordan soon after she found out about his past. And instead of immediately leaving him and this whole affair — there’s plenty more, we’ll get to it — behind, she decided to do something else. String him along, alert the authorities, set up a sting and do her part to make sure he never defrauded another woman ever again.

On Tuesday, in the parking lot of a Cherry Hill strip mall, Jordan was arrested and charged with sexual assault, theft by deception and impersonating a law enforcement officer. He was in Burlington County Court for his first appearance Wednesday, where bail was set at $60,000.

“From there it will go to our screening unit, and then it will be referred to a grand jury for indictment,” said Joel Bewley, spokesman for the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office.

For Lewis, it was a relief.

“I was so emotionally exhausted, all the lying and deceiving,” Lewis said.

It all started in January of 2013. Lewis, a registered nurse and mother to a 13 and 5 year old, was going through a divorce. She joined a dating website, and was contacted by Jordan. Their relationship moved from the website to email and then, after a few months, to an in-person meeting. He told her about his super secret spy job. He also told her everything else she wanted him to say.

“How pretty I was, how smart I was,” Lewis said. “All the things a woman would want to hear.”

By the summer, Jordan told her for the relationship to go to the next level, she would need to go through a detailed security clearance. He told her it wasn’t completely necessary, but it would be easier to incorporate her into his life if she did so.

What followed was months of phone calls and text messages from a D.C. number from a man who identified himself as “Tom” asking her all kinds of personal questions.

“Stuff that can be used to steal an identity,” Lewis said.

She also sent $4,300 in bank transfers, money Lewis said was promised to be waiting for her in a secure Citibank account.

“Of course I thought something was weird,” Lewis said. “But I kept going. I was promised to be introduced to a support group for other people who had partners in these kinds of jobs, that there was a parents portal to be able to track my kids, all these crazy promises.”

By autumn the relationship was taken to the next level. Lewis introduced Jordan to her kids.

“He got along great with them,” she said. “He was patient, good.”

The two of them then discussed starting their own family.

In December, Jordan proposed. Lewis said yes. (“I still have the ring,” she said yesterday. “Probably fake.”)

At the end of January, Lewis found out she was pregnant. Jordan was less than enthused. His comings and goings — which were already getting increasingly “sketchy” — became even more random.

And then it was two days after Valentine’s Day when Lewis looked inside his wallet.

What she found on the ensuing Google search would be enough to break most people. From a BBC.com report on his sentencing in 2006: “He was jailed for five years for bigamy, dishonesty offenses, failing to register as a sex offender and illegally possessing a stun gun. Sentencing Jordan, Judge Thomas Corrie at Oxford Crown Court, said: ‘You are a con man, a convicted pedophile and a bigamist. You are an inveterate exploiter of vulnerable women, not just financially but also emotionally.’”

There were two wives. At least two mistresses. At least 10 children. Fraud upon fraud.

After serving 30 months, he was released from jail and deported back to the United States in 2009.

And when Lewis confronted him with everything she found out, Jordan didn’t outright deny any of it.

“There was a thread of truth to everything he said,” Lewis said. “For instance, he did at one point work for the British government, but as contractor. Either way, I had had it.”

She decided to terminate the pregnancy, obviously a heart-wrenching decision. “I didn’t think it would be fair to bring this child into the world with him as their father,” she said.

She also did a lot of thinking, and decided she wanted to stop Jordan from doing this ever again.

“I knew if I cut him out of my life, I’d never catch him, so I told him we could work it out,” Lewis said. “He tried to rebuild the trust. He was there every day, somewhat changed his routine, showed up on time. I never had him back in my house, never with my kids, but I didn’t want him to run. All the while, I’m handing evidence over to the Florence police. Finally, this Monday, the judge gave the blessing, and we set up the meeting for Tuesday.”

Rather uneventfully — Jordan was walking to a CVS to pick up medication for his mother — the police arrested him.

“I felt really stupid in the beginning when I found out about him,” Lewis said. “Stupid and ashamed. I’m a college-educated person, and I couldn’t believe I could let this happen to me. But then I talked with Mary (his second wife) and she told me I wasn’t stupid; it’s just that he was really good. He had been honing his craft for three decades.

“So I decided to not skulk away with my tail between my legs,” Lewis continued. “I knew I wanted to do something, I just didn’t know what I was capable of. He’s been back in New Jersey for four years, and I can’t believe I’ve been the only victim, and I didn’t want anyone out there to feel the way I’ve felt for the last year. If I didn’t do something, and this happened to someone else, it would be my fault.”

So she did something. Working with the Florence police, she set the trap. And saw it through.

Despite it all, Lewis still marvels at the man she once fell in love with.